Recap: Lab 4 — Print & Type
Quick Reminder: We are sehen und ernten a Berlin-based office for students to extend their mostly theoretical design education of Berlin’s University of Applied Science to real jobs.
A few weeks ago we started the /suelabweeks where we try out different forms of workshops, talks and other stuff.
Last week we gathered in our Schöneweide office to talk about print and type.
Since the labs before were more about digital design approaches it was quite a nice variety to talk about print as well.
zur Quelle
So lab No. 4 started with an introduction by Vivien about the magazine “zur Quelle”.
“zur Quelle” is run by the University Potsdam but has different contributors and is not just an university magazine as you might know it. Last year the people running the magazine contacted us, since they were looking for additional designers to add to their team.
Every issue of the magazine has a different main topic presented by a different animal on the cover, according to that topic. When they first started working on “zur Quelle” there were essentially no stated design principles and every issue was kind of a one-off design. During the process they started to lay out some design ground rules and since it turned out to be a good idea they held on to that process and added some more over the time, until the mag turned out to be more consistent but still creative.
Besides the main topic, the magazine’s content varies from more serious or study-related stuff to topics that are less serious and have more of an artistic or funny approach.
Also good photos are a main part of “zur Quelle”, the staff works with all kinds of different photographers and it always turned out to be good. From concert scenes in South America to old man bars in Berlin, the photos vary in topic as much as the mag itself.
If you are now interested in “zur Quelle”, good news! They are always looking for contributors, no matter if you are into design, photography, or writing, just send an email directly to them or sehen und ernten.
Showtime
After the presentation we had a little showtime, where we talked about some design related stuff, especially print and type that caught our attention lately.
Talking about type, we once again, discussed a font from swiss foundry Grilli Type.
The GT Cinema is a font designed for cinema subtitle machines, but have a look for yourself.
Regarding print, everyone brought some magazines that he or she liked. Fun fact: Designers seem to buy a lot of magazines based on the design and not so much based on the topics.
So when you are in Berlin and see people snooping around stores like Do your read me, soda or Motto Berlin buying various magazines to a lot of different topics with good design its probably one of us.
Some Magazines that we talked about that stood out in particular where:
A magazine from slovakia thats all about the current third wave coffee craze. Very nice design and you get some free coffee with a subscription
A German magazine based on reportages (like you could have guessed), almost no pictures and just very good typography. Again a link to Grilli Type who designed the main font GT Sectra for this magazine.
German music magazine, that has a different approach than most other (german) music mags. More story related than just album reviews and interviews, also with a very nice design and layout.
This Week we will host lab 5, thats all about the current bachelor students from Berlins University of applied Science, so if you are interested what tomorrows designer have to say about their current state of their projects, feel free to join us on Wednesday. Of course our next lab is on Facebook and Meetup
